A US Foreclosure Market Report for October was recently produced by the Irvine, CA based Realtytrac. Over 230,678 US properties show default notices, foreclosure filings, bank repossessions and scheduled auctions with a foreclosure filing rate of one in every 563 US housing units for the month. This is a 7% increase from September. The general increase in foreclosure activity is expected to continue.

“Recent state court rulings and new state laws keep changing the rules of the foreclosures game on the fly, creating more uncertainty in the housing market and threatening to prolong the road to a robust real estate recovery,” says James Saccacio, CEO of RealtyTrac. Carry Calkin, managing director for Voit Real Estate Services out of Newport Beach mentions that many lenders hoped to see the market improve in order to limit the amount foreclosures. “That is not materializing so they are forced to look for a liquidation through the foreclosure process.”

According to real estate attorney Brian Kang of Greenberg Glusker, the increase of foreclosures could continue through 2014 and the government programs HAMP and HARP have not entirely been effective. “Many borrowers have been unable to take advantages for various reasons including the 125% loan to value ratio requirement—i.e., your loan cannot be more that 125% the current value of the home.”